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Can you drive 20 minutes without a nag? Tesla's fault-shift strategy

In the past I've read about accidents involving AP and Tesla invariably reviews the car telemetry and announces that the driver had received x number of hands on the wheel warnings prior to the crash. That always inclined me to dismiss the accident as driver error.

With the current software update, I literally cannot drive 20 minutes on AP without at least one brief warning. Hands on the wheel the whole time. It literally guarantees that if I am ever in an accident using AP that I will have at least one warning in my telemetry prior to the accident even if I have been death-gripping the wheel the whole time.

Am I being paranoid or is it an absolute guarantee at this point that every single AP accident with this software update will be preceded by at least one warning?

how are you holding the wheel? I have right hand at 3 o'clock (or anywhere between 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock seems to work) and get no nags even for 30 minutes drives. Resting palm on the horizontal part of the steering wheel just above the buttons also works but harder to quickly take over in an emergency.

They also know it's no real measure of attention. I can easily hold a steering wheel in one hand while my entire attention is on a cute girl in a car next to me. Not that I would do that, but that I could.

Tesla also knows that a good percent of the customers have no clue how the technology works. Where they don't know the car can't always see stopped objects.

I think they're just trying to hold on to improve the technology to a point where it works, and in the mean time we're going to all pretend that any of this will do any good.

They also know it's no real measure of attention. I can easily hold a steering wheel in one hand while my entire attention is on a cute girl in a car next to me. Not that I would do that, but that I could.

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Lol. Completely agree. Torque on wheel does not equal paying attention. Could be asleep and still register torque on the wheel if you rest your palm in the notche on the left or right of the wheel. And could be highly attentive with hands off the wheel.

how are you holding the wheel? I have right hand at 3 o'clock (or anywhere between 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock seems to work) and get no nags even for 30 minutes drives. Resting palm on the horizontal part of the steering wheel just above the buttons also works but harder to quickly take over in an emergency.

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This reminds me of when Steven Jobs told us all we were holding our cell phones wrong.

I don't normally put torque on a steering wheel when I want to drive in a straight line. The current AP iteration requires an unnatural force to be placed on the wheel, not because it's required to operate the car, but because it's some weird surrogate for paying attention to the road.

I’ve been wondering for months now what the press release would look like after one of my own accidents. You’re 100% right, this is all about them having the ability to shift blame. It does nothing to make anyone (except Tesla) safer.

In the past I've read about accidents involving AP and Tesla invariably reviews the car telemetry and announces that the driver had received x number of hands on the wheel warnings prior to the crash. That always inclined me to dismiss the accident as driver error.

With the current software update, I literally cannot drive 20 minutes on AP without at least one brief warning. Hands on the wheel the whole time. It literally guarantees that if I am ever in an accident using AP that I will have at least one warning in my telemetry prior to the accident even if I have been death-gripping the wheel the whole time.

Am I being paranoid or is it an absolute guarantee at this point that every single AP accident with this software update will be preceded by at least one warning?

Click to expand...

It requires an effort on my part to actually get a NAG. I always have at least 1 hand on the wheel and almost never see the nag. When I say almost I meant it is hard to remember when I last got one that was not trying to get one.

Maybe with the nags coming quicker and even more quicker at higher speeds it could be that even though some people are doing the same thing they were doing before they were simply not doing the proper movement or resistance very frequent and now they are getting more nags because of it. Just trying to understand why so many are seeing more nags then a lot of us. Or of course could be the Car.

You're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, you always were... now people are upset that Tesla is doing more to enforce the rules? I hate to say this, but what do you think happens when you pay $5,000 for an unfinished, beta feature that changes on a weekly basis? What did you expect would happen? This is so laughable.

The number of threads could be an indicator of a solution in search of a problem. I can also put both hands on the wheel and get nagged as the fault of the solution is that it can't tell if you have your hands on the wheel. I can apply pressure (which is not putting hands on wheel, it's applying pressure which is different), and ensure I never get a nag but as mentioned...that's not natural. When I drive without AP I lightly hold the wheel to occasionally correct the slight drift that happens when driving. So yes, Jeff (who never...ever..ever..gets a nag) may be able to force the car computers to confirm he's applying torque, but again that has nothing to do with hands on wheel.

Now for the solution part. If keeping hands on the wheel, as mandated by Tesla, prevents accidents then society as a whole is either not holding the wheel or we should have a lot less accidents....just say'n

Edit: Actually it would be interesting to see someone apply the same amount of pressure on the steering wheel with AP and without AP and see what happens.

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